Season 4 Episode 4: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Thousands and Thousands and Thousands of Queens

Dedicated to the memory of Florida queen breeder David Miksa

This episode was recorded two days before David Miksa passed away. His son Ted and I chat about this remarkable beekeeping family and about queen breeding in general. We jump right into our conversation, catching up with Ted at the end of a long day of his work on the farm.

Among the topics covered are running mating nucs through the hot Florida summer; banking queens in Florida (and how that might work in Canada); queen importation into Canada; the way that inbreeding stock can yield unfortunate surprise results. We note that about 10% of all the managed honey bee colonies in America have queens (or queen cells) that originated at Miksa honey farm in Lake County, Florida - so we talk about the logistics of producing and selling all those queens, the nine stock lines involved and strategies to keep Africanized stock out of those queens.

We wrap up noting the importance of nutrition, especially for nurse bees that are feeding developing queen larvae. And the sage advice: “Take care of the bees and they’ll take care of you.”

This episode was recorded in May, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 4 Episode 3: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Bee Thievery

Pay close attention and you may pick up a few clues to reduce honey bee hive thefts. Listen even more closely and you may pick up tips on how to steal colonies. But please don't. It's not worth time in the big house.

We also chat about the apiary in a box (BeeCube), Apimondia's upcoming conference in Denmark, Ron's queen-rearing presentation for Western Apicultural Society, a scheme to raise queens from one single colony (Ron is a skeptic), and ideas around swapping Canadian bees for southern hemisphere bees once a year. But mostly we talk about a honey bee heist that happened here in Alberta, Canada.

This episode was recorded in May, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 4 Episode 2: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – A Rose among the Bees

With Rose, our conversation starts with a bee walking on Ron's neck, progresses to a stash of wax, some bee work, civilization, parasites, and beeswax, beeswax church candles, bees coming to America, mead, monks, America's first pauper (who was a beekeeper), tomato pollination, Rose's training of dogs to find foulbrood, and so much more.

This episode was recorded in April, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 4 Episode 1: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Philosophy of Bee Happiness

With Daniel Miksha, we try to unravel the philosophy of happiness. We barely touch on our intended theme (Can bees be happy?), but we lay some of the essential groundwork.

This episode was recorded in April, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 4 Trailer: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Season 4 Trailer

A quick preview of Season 4! How will we treat for mites? Is spring honey any good in the north? (Ron doesn't think so.) And Bidzina muses about building a cabin where paying customers can enjoy the air exhausted by honey bee colonies.

This episode was recorded in March, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and existential angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 3 Episode 11: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Arizona's Monica King

Our best podcast so far. We chat with Monica King, who rescues Africanized Honey Bees and teaches beekeepers in Tucson, Arizona.

Monica's bee rescue web page: Monica King - Contact & Bee Removals

This episode was recorded in March, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and existential angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 3 Episode 10: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Spring feeding

Before we look at spring feeding strategies in the northern part of the northern hemisphere, we take a detour through a few important news stories, including the effect tariffs might have on honey sent from Canada to the USA, Apimondia in Denmark, the death of Gene Hackman, and a trial chemical treatment that might help bees withstand pesticide poisoning.

In our main theme, we critique a half dozen popular spring feeding methods. How does your favourite feeding technique stack up?

Bonus link: Apimondia 2025

This episode was recorded in March, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: ron@aboutbees.net

Season 3 Episode 9: About Bees, Culture & Curiosity Podcast – Packages or Overwintered Colonies?

We begin this episode – which is mostly about honey production using package bees – with a quick look at gloomy Denmark, where this year’s big international bee fest is being held. That, of course, leads us to a discussion about the wealth of nations (not to be confused with Adam Smith’s book), before finally circling back to packages of honey bees.

What works better – packages or overwintered honey bee colonies? It depends on location, but we come out in favour of packages here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Find out why.

Bonus link: Apimondia 2025

This episode was recorded in March, 2025.

Please subscribe, like, love, and follow. We live or die by your adulation.

Podcast website: https://sites.libsyn.com/540327/site
About Ron Miksha: https://about-bees.org/about-ron/

Finally: email your questions, comments, and angst: ron@aboutbees.net